


Salvation [Meta]

by falsepremise



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Heaven, Hell, Meta, Other, Salvation, bad deeds, faith - Freeform, good deeds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21692488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsepremise/pseuds/falsepremise
Summary: Meta. How does salvation work in the world of Good Omens?  In other words, are the dead humans going to Heaven and Hell and what determines who goes where? Is it determined by faith, by deeds or by some combination of the two?
Kudos: 9





	Salvation [Meta]

How does salvation work in the world of Good Omens?

In other words, are the dead humans going to Heaven and Hell and what determines who goes where?

Is it determined by faith, by deeds or by some combination of the two?

Let’s look at what the canon, show and book, gives us:

**People we know are damned (go to Hell) or saved (go to Heaven)**

We know, from Crowley, that most of the world’s great composers/musicians (the show says composers and the book musicians) have gone to Hell. In particular, Crowley says (in both the show and the book) that Hell has Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and all of the Bachs.

In the show, the mere fact that Crowley raises the great composers in this way, and the fact that Aziraphale doesn’t answer with an impressive list of great composers who went to Heaven suggests that the clear majority of the great composers have gone to Hell and they both know it.

The book is more specific about how few composers/musicians have made it to Heaven. According to the book, the only two great musicians Heaven has are Elgar and Liszt. That is absolutely shocking. So few? Straight away we need to ask: are musicians a particularly Hellish bunch or is Heaven a little empty?

Let’s look at Crowley’s list of hell-bound musicians in greater depth. The first thing to note, straight up, is it includes Christians: Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven were all at least nominally or raised Catholic, Johann Sebastian Bach was Lutheran and Johann Christian Bach was raised Lutheran and converted to Catholicism. It is difficult to know the level of genuine faith that a historical figure may have had. But it is fair to say, I think, that at least someone on this list must have had sincere religious faith. They certainly successfully inspired the faith of others with devotional music and this is especially true of Johann Sebastian Bach (how did he not secure a place in Heaven on the grounds of composing Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring?! Like seriously?!)

This suggests that faith alone, or at least faith in Jesus Christ and the Christian God, is not enough. Perhaps, it is not enough to simply have faith, perhaps a strong degree of faith and devotion is required. Or perhaps faith must be combined with a sufficient balance towards good deeds (and a lack of bad deeds)?

Flipping it, and looking at the two great composers who are (according to the book) in Heaven we have a Catholic (Elgar) and a Christian (Liszt). Liszt in particular is said to have had a sincere faith but also struggled with his faith. Comparing the Hell and Heaven bound composers it isn’t clear why each have the destiny they have. If Liszt was faithful and good enough for Heaven, why not Johann Sebastian Bach the best known composer of devotional music? It is a mystery.

And here we come to another sticking point: the great composers, as good and bad deeds go, seem pretty ordinary to me. They aren’t saints by any stretch. But they aren’t a bunch of murderers either. Mozart is known for a bit of debauchery, but Johann Sebastian Bach seems to have devoted himself to family, music and church. Plus, c’mon he had to have gotten points for all of that devotional music, surely (yes I’m going to keep going on about that just listen to Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring FFS)? To me, this suggests that getting into Heaven is damn hard. If the majority of the great composers are in Hell then I suspect that the majority of **_people_** are in Hell. And I’m still not quite sure how Elgar and Liszt made it.

So already we have: (1) most people are going to Hell and (2) God works in really mysterious ways.

Let’s look at the other people we know go to Hell: the Nazi spies. On the show Crowley says they won’t like dying and they “certainly won’t like what comes next”. Now, this one isn’t a surprise. We know they are murderers. So there is certainly good reason deed-wise for them to go to Hell, though we know nothing of their religious beliefs so it could be the case that they lack faith too. We don’t learn much from the Nazis in other words.

**Known temptations and miracles**

We get a glimpse into the workings of Hell when Hastur, Ligur and Crowley discuss their deeds of the day in the show and the book. Hastur finds a priest and puts doubt into his mind as he sees the pretty girls in the sun. Ligur tempts a politician into taking a bribe. Crowley, of course, brings down every London area mobile phone network, so that lots of angry people take it out in each other (in the book this is in central London only for forty-five minutes at lunchtime). They are all trying to secure souls for Hell and this is how they choose to do it. So it tells us something about how people end up in Hell.

Ligur and Crowley’s actions suggest that deeds count, and not just specific extra-bad deeds like the mortal sins of Catholicism. It suggests that bad deeds of all degrees—including having a good yell at your secretary because your phone isn’t working— count and can tip the scales. Otherwise, Crowley’s actions wouldn’t be effective. I don’t think anyone is going to leap to murder or lose their religion just because their mobile phone isn’t working.

Hastur’s action, putting doubt into the mind of a priest—doubt not lust as we might expect from the pretty girls in the sun— suggests that faith is important too.

So we have two conclusions from the discussion of the deeds of the day (1) faith matters, (2) and so do deeds, in fact, even small bad deeds can tip the scales.

Looking at the other evidence we have about how Heaven and Hell are trying to win souls (in the show) we find a consistent picture. We know that in the time of King Arthur Aziraphale was working to foment peace and Crowley to foment discord. Again, this suggests the importance of deeds. If faith alone were sufficient Aziraphale should be focussing not in peace but on faith (and Crowley on doubt).

From Crowley and Aziraphale’s discussion in Shakespeare’s theatre we know that Crowley had the assignment of tempting a Scottish king into stealing horses. Again, this suggests that deeds are important, and that the ratio of good to bad deeds across one’s lifetime can be a determining factor in your ultimate destiny.

Overall, the fact that Hell is continuing to focus on tempting people into bad deeds even little bad deeds, rather than merely undermining faith, suggests that faith alone is insufficient to secure a place in Heaven. 

**The Fall and salvation**

Angels too are either saved or damned, ending up in either Heaven or Hell for eternity. For humanity, Adam and Eve damned us all by eating the forbidden fruit. Original sin became our default state passed down through the generations. Individual humans are born “damned” and we must win salvation through some combination of faith and good deeds. In contrast, angels/demons were created in Heaven and each individual angel/demon either remained in Heaven or was damned in The Fall.

Looking at The Fall, a similar salvation pattern emerges with both faith and deeds seeming important. Crowley, we know, didn’t intend to fall. We also know he isn’t really a bad person. At the same time, Aziraphale isn’t purely good either. He’s a bit of a bastard. And it isn’t just Crowley and Aziraphale who are more complex than simply being bad or good (cough Gabriel is an arsehole). Crowley fell for questioning, that is, for lacking faith. Of course, he knows God exists, so it isn’t that kind of faith that he lacks. He doesn’t trust God, he doesn’t have faith in the Great Plan. It is a lack of that kind of faith that damned him.

We don’t know much about the reasons why the other demons fell, except that there was a rebellion and a war, so some amount of bad deeds must have occurred.

**Conclusion**

In Good Omens, whether a human goes to Heaven or Hell after death, whether they are saved or damned appears to be determined by some combination of faith and deeds. It is likely that getting into Heaven is quite difficult, and requires (1) sufficient faith and sufficient might be quite a high degree of devotion in fact, (2) sufficient good deeds and (3) few enough bad deeds to tip the scales. It seems likely that the majority of humans (not just the majority of great musicians) end up in Hell. Otherwise, it is hard to explain why so many musicians are there. How exactly Elgar and Liszt managed to be the two great musicians who got into Heaven—what the magic formula is—is not clear. It is a little mysterious. However it works for humans it is quite possible that it works the same way for angels. That is, the exact same formula may have determined which of the angels fell during The Fall. What exactly that formula is, well, it is a bit ineffable. 


End file.
